Sotl blood bard excerpt
Kendrick Eversong had been sipping on a mid-morning ale when a young boy came into the tavern, hollering about Welexi Sunhawk flying overhead. The last piece of correspondence from Gennaro had arrived three days ago, which meant that it was nearly two weeks out of date. At that time, word had been that Welexi was intending to sail to Parance, which likely meant another two weeks until he came to Meriwall, if he kept to his patterns. Something had changed, but it was a mystery as to what. When Kendrick had worked as Welexi’s bard, he was always dealing with stories coming in weeks or even months after they’d happened, responding to events that had happened ages ago. By the time word of a broken siege in Lerabor reached Meriwall, the siege had already been over for weeks. It had been a pain then, and it was a pain now, but Kendrick got up and went to work. The man that carried him was named Clarence. He was short but wide, and extremely muscular, and had been chosen from among the Council of Laborers for precisely those reasons. The idea was for Kendrick to be held high above the heads of the gathered crowd, moving along as though he was floating. It was important for Clarence to be short so that he wouldn’t be too visible to the crowds and draw attention to himself. Clarence and Kendrick had practiced together in a warehouse where racks of lamb were curing, until they could move together in a way that didn’t betray the amount of balance and strength it took. “Something’s wrong with Welexi’s hand,” said a wiry man from within the Council. He was slightly out of breath, with news that was only minutes out-of-date instead of weeks. “And there’s another illustrati with him, looks like shadow.” “Gaelwyn and Vidre are on the ship?” asked Kendrick. The wiry man nodded. It was really the long-awaited moment then. Kendrick had to resist the urge to show his anxiety. If only the Zenith weren’t so fast, he wouldn’t have so many gaps in his knowledge. The landscape had changed, and the gambit was now far less certain. There was a strong argument to be made for holding off and waiting for more information to come in, but theatrics demanded that the challenge happen now, when everyone would be assembled and the crowds would be thick. There was no guarantee that he would be able to get all three of them together in public again; Vidre in particular liked to slip off the ship at the first opportunity. In Kendrick’s experience, news traveled in waves, and if you timed things wrong you would end up with those waves crashing into each other instead of adding their force to one another. No, it had to be now, whatever the risks. When the Zenith docked, Kendrick was lifted up, and sang the song he’d been practicing for ages. From his new vantage point he could see Welexi’s hand; “something’s wrong” had been understating it by a wide margin, given that most of the fingers were missing. Vidre was looking as radiant as ever, even with her mask of anger. Yet Kendrick’s eyes kept going to the newcomer, the unknown element dressed in unfashionable clothing and a breastplate made of shadow, with shaggy curls of hair and a mildly confused look on his face. When the man - no, the boy - stepped forward to accept the duel, Kendrick almost faltered. Yet he had honed his skills in improvisation over the course of a decade and a half, and he decided to run with it and figure everything out later. He wanted desperately to stay, to ask what in the hell was going on, or simply to listen to the speech that Welexi was about to give, but the narrative had to be centered on the duel, and that meant making an exit instead of heckling. A slight movement of the foot got Clarence moving through the crowds, and Kendrick strummed his lute as though he had not a single care in the world. Pluvialis (talk) 16:57, May 23, 2015 (UTC) The Blood Bard retreated, held aloft. He hummed his tune and idly played his lute, while Dominic watched him go. Dominic nearly jumped when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He looked to the side, and saw Welexi standing next to him, with a benevolent smile on his face. “This is young man is Lightscour,” Welexi said to the crowd. “Ten days ago he was living a hardscrabble life on the streets of Gennaro. Nine days ago he killed the Titan of Rust and Ruin.” Ripples went through the crowd, hushed murmurs and gasps of disbelief. Welexi held up his ruined hand, the one with fingers of light, and the masses again when silent. “Tonight at Amare’s Theater, just after sundown, I’ll tell the tale of how I took this wound. And three days after that, Lightscour will prove the strength of his convictions on that same stage.”